The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters (Nintendo Switch) Review

Mina Park has a problem; she has become the bearer of an accursed amulet that has her living out a nightmare that she cannot wake from. Terrible shades actively try to violently murder her and take the form of perverse reflections of people she knows. Amidst this nightmare of converging eras, a botched ritual that involves a dark entity trying to possess a victim so it can enter the world of the living. Mina will have to explore several locations and try to survive the eldritch terror that lies within the "Coma."

Seeking notes, solving puzzles, and doing many quick-time-events is a bulk of The Coma 2: Vicious Sister. The gameplay is seemingly inspired by the adventure games developed by Human Entertainment in the mid to late '90s. The point-of-view is profiled, and characters can freely walk left or right. Mina is able to investigate with specific points of interest that come with some flavour-text, and are sometimes interacting. Most of her actions will involve running, dodging, and button-prompts. Inventory is very limited, and useful items are either found or purchased from vending machines; a comfy middle-ground for old-school horror fans and newcomers.

The real meat of The Coma 2 is using the simplistic gameplay to avoid the titular Vicious Sister herself. This bodacious butcher puts "slit" in slit skirt, and is eager to ventilate Mina's oesophagus. She will make her presence known with a loud clomping sound from her sexy stiletto heels. This is how The Coma 2 telegraphs its stalker, to give the player a fighting chance to run and hide. This usually means either getting in a locker or under a desk, followed by a very simple quick-time-event. It is never demanding; the prompts are generous, and encounters never last more than a few minutes.

The optional objectives are where The Coma 2 becomes stressful, because these side activities typically mean having to further explore hostile locations. Completing these become ultimately necessary, since not partaking in them does lead to Mina losing one bar of her max HP at the end of the chapter. Every stage will have a optional mission to undergo, and The Coma 2 leaves the onus on the player if they are willing to potentially exhaust resources or die trying to get what is needed. Not participating will leave Mina extremely vulnerable, and could die in one hit. There are always traps and vulgar tentacle creatures that can easily catch a seasoned gamer off-guard, and having to contend with the darkness all but guarantees a quick death.

At least it would be a quick death if it weren't for the lack of difficulty in The Coma 2. Mina may only carry four items at first, but she can easily buy whatever she needs at a vending machine since money is plentiful. There is already a ton of consumables strewn about the nightmare world, making it unlikely that resources will ever be low. The darkness is never a problem since Mina's lighter lasts forever, and she is able to manually save with no cost or penalty. There is never any question or confusion of where she has to go, because her map automatically adds markers to remove any opportunity that may require thinking. The lack of challenge is one of the major downfalls of The Coma 2 since its lack of challenge makes it boring.

The art style for The Coma 2 resembles a web-comic style, and is out of place for a gruesome paranormal horror game, with mass dismemberment and decapitation. It's all a bit too cartoony to make anything seem truly threatening. Mina's animation also uses a very cheap iteration of limb-based movement, which is done well enough, but lacks enough animation between actions. She ends up snapping into positions which does make her pretty fast, but also looks extremely uncanny. It is clear that the developer did not have a lot of resources to fully illustrate their vision, and had to be extremely economical with what they had. The art is leaned heavily to carry the vision; but there needed to be more effort put into the animation to better emphasize on creating atmosphere.